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Ogata and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of 342 patients with resected stage II or III colorectal cancer, of whom 225 received adjuvant oral fluoropyrimidines and 117 received no further treatment after surgery. The researchers found that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) overexpression had a significantly deleterious effect on disease-free survival. Importantly, VEGF not only impacted outcomes for all patients regardless of treatment, but also affected response to treatment. Although disease-free survival and overall survival were longer for patients who received chemotherapy than for patients treated with surgery alone in the overall group, there was no significant disease-free survival benefit for chemotherapy over surgery alone in patients whose tumors overexpressed VEGF (P=0.235). This finding suggests that VEGF may impair the response of colorectal cancer to conventional systemic therapy.1
Ogata Y, Matono K, Mizobe T, et al. Oncol Rep. 2006;15:1111-1116.
